Originally Posted by
Colin
comparing options for loyalless traveler who wants top hotel status for 25 days/y of leisure travel
AMEX Aspire for $450/y gets top elite Hilton Diamond
vs.
Chase WoH Personal/Business for $250/y yields top elite Hyatt Globalist under these parameters
* use points/certs/cash to stay 25 nights/y in Hyatt hotels
* spend $60K/y on Chase (little opp cost relative to 2% cash back card)
WoH route a better deal for annual fee savings. And then add on all the ways WoH Globalist > HH Diamond reasons. Wonder why every not-poor American isn’t Globalist?
Well, there are three big reasons:
(1) The WoH Business card is brand new, and not everyone is set up for a Business card. Prior to that card coming into play, getting to the aforementioned point would have required spending $75k on the personal card, with a marginally different value proposition.
(2) Hilton and Hyatt aren't the only games in town. There's also Marriott and IHG (both with big footprints) as well as Choice and others (smaller footprints, but some with a decent bit of space that's further down-budget from Hyatt).
(3) More generally, while Hyatt may be better
if your travel patterns work for it, there are still
plenty of gaps in the Hyatt map and cases where it doesn't work. Hilton and Marriott generally win on footprint (even in cases where there
is a Hyatt, there are often 3-5 Marriotts and a few Hiltons in the neighborhood), and Choice will beat Hyatt out on price in most cases (Marriott and Hilton can win here, too, due to sheer footprint and variability in properties). Marriott also has a broader range of transfer partners if that's your preferred use for accumulated points (and let's be honest, 8 airline miles per dollar spent if you have status may not be the
greatest haul in the universe, but it isn't
bad).
If your travels mostly take you where either there are no Hyatt properties located in a "good" area for you or where the only properties are generally either rather expensive or have "issues" (there are a few bad apples in every bunch), then those 25 nights are mostly a waste.
Also, remember...a
lot of Americans don't travel like most folks on here do. Plenty of folks just don't have a reason to spend 25+ nights/year in hotels, meaning they'd be wasting cash and/or points on some of those stays even if the spend pattern makes sense.
For example, right now I'm visiting a friend in Louisiana. There isn't a Hyatt within 30 miles of here (the closest one is in Baton Rouge). There's a Marriott property (CY), a Hilton property (HI), and a few others not far away and a
ton within 10-15 miles. If this is "the" primary travel destination for me, Hyatt wouldn't be worth much. By the same token, there are also plenty of vacation areas (Myrtle Beach, the Outer Banks, the Jersey shore) with
zero Hyatt presence...and even in Virginia Beach, the single property is...well, it's a single property that can end up with nosebleed prices or sold out, and it's an HH that's in Category 5, so the value is limited.